Tethered Hearts | ✓ | Books 1 & 2

Episode 69| It's Not Over Till It's Over

Song Above: Desperado by Rihanna

Bryce's P.O.V.

I.
Couldn't see.

But I could feel.
The sweat,
Trickling down my back,
Felt like bullets.

Burning and blazing,
Across my skin.

Pain flourished
In the depths of my
Unconscious brain.

I was praying for an end of the
Discomfort.

Death seemed to be the only answer to this agony.
And appropriately, the devil did in fact
visit me
In the form of a woman.
Guiding me to the gates of hell.

...

Something woke me up. It wasn't a person, but in fact a thing...or rather a smell. My eyelids felt heavy, staying closed as the odor intensified. I instantly recognized the overpowering scent of gasoline as it

          drip
          drip
          drip
         dripped on to the floor.

The urgency to regain full consciousness coursed through me at the sound of a match, scratching against sand paper. My eyes flickered open. I tried to leap out of the seat I had been placed on, jumping up and twisting in my chair.

My disoriented mind finally came to the realization of the rope that coiled around my body, hindering me from getting far and getting out of my seat.

I was in a windowless room, bound to a plastic foldable chair. The only source of light came from the blinking bulb in the hallway outside of the cell I was in. As the light flashed on, I got a glimpse of the woman standing in the shadows of my cell, holding a red Jerry Can, containing gas fuel.

"Who's there?" I croaked, inhaling shallow breathes. "Step into the light."

"I like where I'm standing." She cooed, lowering the Jerry Can to the cement floor and setting the matches beside it. For a second, the warm orange light swept across her face.

"Audrey." I said, knocking my head back with a chuckle. "Why am I not surprised?"

"You should be."

"I really shouldn't. You have a meaningless one-sided feud going on—"

"Meaningless?" She scoffed. "This isn't meaningless. Neither is it one sided. You started this."

"No, I did. You ambushed me at my safe house, threatening my men first. I merely retaliated by taking back what was rightfully mine."

Audrey crossed her arms, walking into the light. "I was the one retaliating for what you did to my fiancé six years ago. What? You thought I targeted you purely at random?" She didn't wait for me to reply. "Why don't you think far back enough to remember what you were doing in 1987."

She snapped her fingers. "Can't remember? I'll give you a review on that dreadful night." She came up behind me, slamming her hands down on my shoulders. "You had recently moved to California, if I'm not mistaken—"

I shut my eyes. "You don't need to tell me. I know what happened that year."

"No, you obviously don't if you think I'm the one who started this."

"I think there must've been a misunderstanding. There's no possibly way that I was the one behind Rio becoming paralyzed." Sophia had told me months ago about how her brother had gotten paralyzed when she was only thirteen. For years, she blamed her father. "Wasn't it an accident?"